Make sure you start the month right by taking the time to make certain your SQL Server environment is performing and being maintained up to where you need. To do that you need to check to be sure that you have the right the right resources in place and that unexpected problems are prevented or their risks are mitigated as much as possible. One of the best ways to do this, is to have a process in place that provides a basis for checking your environment on a monthly basis.
As an example of what you need to check, you can use my 10 Monthly Maintenance Tasks for SQL Server. It covers most everything in your SQL Server environment that needs to be checked. If you see anything missing from that list, please leave a comment on this post. And if there are good resources out there that should be included on the list – share those as well.
Checklist Updates
Since last month, the checklist has gone through a few significant changes. The main changes are in the order of the tasks and the flow of the maintenance process. These changes were mainly added to improve the usefulness and opportunity for you, the reader, to leverage the checklist and better maintain your environment.
Besides those changes, there are a couple other changes as well:
- Added information on Windows Server 2012 R2 evaluation edition and details on the (relatively) new Windows Server patching process with Update Rollups.
- Added SQL Server 2104 RTM evaluation to list
- Added Cumulative Update for SQL Server 2012 SP1
- Added Cumulative Update for SQL Server 2008 SP3
There weren’t a lot of changes made through Cumulative Updates in the last month, but one item to note is the announcement on Service Packs for the current releases of SQL Server. It states that Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2012 is planned and that SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 are still under discussion. Great news on the first service pack, and hopefully there’ll be a couple more the for the other versions of SQL Server. Also, if you have time to take a look at it, the SQL Server 2012 Product Guide to see how you can use SQL Server in your environment.
SOMETHING MISSING?
Is there something missing in this checklist or with the pages that has been overlooked? Any cool links that would aid in the review of your SQL Server environments? If so, leave a comment below and I’ll take a look.
